cosmicdancer

You know Islam, and recognize it for what it is, and you should recall that for one such as you, Allah will not accept any other religion from you once you've recognized the truth. Hassan do not DARE stand before The Master of the Day of Judgment, manifest in His glory & power, with the sin of giving Him a partner/son upon your record. Things will not go well for you. Christianity is not for you. Pick up once again the mantle of Al-Islam, and hold onto it for dear life. Die not except in the state of bearing witness that there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger that you may know Peace.

As I say, belief is not something I have complete control over. I can't bear witness there is a God - because I'm not sure there is one! Nor do I believe the Qur'an is the word of a God - if one exists.

Do you think it is reasonable to ask a person to surrender to and abide by beliefs & commands he doesn't believe in?

To basically live a lie. To pretend and not be true to himself?

Why should I submit and abide by Islam and not Christianity, Hinduism, Scientology, Church of Latter Day Saints etc...?

And there is no point telling me because the other religions are 'false' - because I believe they are all false.

So I have no reason to "pretend" to believe in any one more than the other.

Cornflower

O atheist!! Do not presume to preach to me my religion!! I will NOT follow you to hell! What I told Ali above is exactly what is true. There is NOTHING that can come from your disbelieving face that will hold any worth.

Shut. Up.

The ONLY thing you can do is to bow down to your Guardian Lord who made you, and repent of your filth. That's it! Do not dare talk to me of scripture and hadith when your own piss poor understanding has you on the path towards the Pit!

So that is you response? Your irrational behaviour is making me more and more convinced you're a troll.

And as for "meatballs", if you'd like a conversation about the scriptures and classical theology I am qualified for that. What else do I have use of the many years I studied with shaikh fulaan wa fulaan. Under the condition you actually respond and not go off into a rant of insults.

You claiming that a person with no iman will be saved is lying about allah without knowledge. You know what that'll get you, right?

"The healthiest people I know are those who are the first to label themselves fucked up." - three

lua, without a demonstration that a brand new species was produced from these tests and experiments, you still lack any kind of proof of the primary claims of evolutionary theory. Numerous minute changes to a species that never, ever change the fundamental nature of that species, are not proof of speciation diversity through natural selection. Please note that although infinite changes artificially selected the dog we call “wolf” into the dog we call “Chihuahua,” the latter never stopped being a dog. My own body has now become immune to childhood diseases, yet I haven’t stopped being a homo sapien.

I think I'm starting to see how we might be looking at the whole ordeal differently, so if you'll be patient with me, I'm going to try to guide you through my perspective to see if we can get on the same page when we're talking about evidence—although this might be the long way around. Incidentally, that will probably address at least most of the other responses on this post so I'll only address them briefly after.

So when we talk about a species, let's set aside the fact that there's not actually a fool-proof way of defining one (there is apparently an eternal debate amongst biologists about classifying this or that, nothing new under the sun), but to really get to the meat of it we have to go right down to my interests and start talking about the genome.

When you talk about the “fundamental nature” of a species, what precisely do you have in mind? It's easy to say, “Well, you know, a dog will not become a cat, and the cat and the dog are very different,” and that's true! But what makes them different? What is the fundamental nature of the dog?

The answer, of course, is in his genome, and this is where we start to talk about the evidence that I feel like I see on a regular basis. The genome is everything. It's what separates you and I from a banana, a normal human baby from a clump of cells later necessarily miscarried because the cells' DNA did not contain some segment necessary to continue with the production of a human body, and what separates the cat from the dog. You mention minute changes to the genetic code, but, interestingly, between certain organisms, those minute changes are precisely what made it of a separate species and they are defined by those phenotypes that arise from those differences, and not the, say, ninety-some-odd percent similarities they might share with another organism.

So, okay, you probably know this. You probably have heard all about how much we have in common with other primates re our DNA and so on and so forth. You're probably not falling off of your seat right now in shock. But this is where you and I start to look at it in two different ways. I've gathered that you seem to think that, at the point of creation, God made a human and gave him his genetic code and also made a bonobo and happened to give him a very similar genetic code, perhaps just to stay organized and keep the programming tidy. Or maybe he created a "language" with DNA (although that makes things like the "wobble" effect in translation where the ribosomal complex winds up giving the codon the finger every once in a while and placing whatever it wants there, or that the code is nearly universal, but not completely, and codes for different amino acids in some organisms a bit confusing, but whatever, we'll get to that).

Now, this is part of why this will be a disappointing conversation for you: there's nothing I can say or would possibly care to assert that would disprove that this, somehow, could have happened. For me, it raises a lot of questions, and it's interesting that you should mention Occam's Razor, because although “God did it” seems deceptively definitive and simple, it brings with it more questions than answers, not only in regards to classic bits of evidence like junk, viral, mtDNA and what have you, but also in the logistics of the point of creation itself. I also suppose it could be possible that God purposefully added this stuff to deceive the weak of faith, which I also couldn't disprove, although I'd think that a particularly nasty thing to have done, but again: nothing new under the sun.

So knowing that I can't disprove your claims that God did it any more than I could if someone claimed some other god did it, or that aliens did it, or that we're actually living in the matrix and this is all a simulation, let's talk about I see in my field that makes me continue to accept the theory of evolution.

When I'm making libraries, or when I'm doing digests, or when I'm even just browsing NCBI, I see a great deal of overlap. For example, I see modern bacteria whose very defining characteristics were obtained from viruses. So now I must ask myself: despite the fact that I, if I am so inclined, can (and frequently do) modify the DNA of this bacteria to make it contain anything that I want it to, and that the modifying of the bacteria's DNA with viruses is not only observable but experimentally inducable, should I accept that these strange little organisms that I have growing on my dish actually have always been here, doing their thing, since the point of creation, and that it's mere coincidence that they contained segments related to a virus?

Or, as is more a softer and more popular way for modern creationists to protest, shall I now say, “Okay, yes, single-celled organisms can evolve and are easily manipulated and that's not a problem. That's microevolution, and my religion doesn't say anything about germs, so I accept this,” and move on? Of course not. I agree that it does not prove macroevolution occurs, although it is evidence that it is more likely than not, as there's really not so much separating us from the lowly E. coli as we'd like to believe. So let's continue on.

I see genes that all organisms have that code for certain proteins. I see some of these organisms happen to never ever express these proteins because they simply no longer have any need for them. I see some of these organisms who have an even shiner and new gene that encodes for a protein that takes the place of this old protein and, in the same way, renders the common gene as redundant and no longer useful. So I'm left with these questions: why would our DNA contain so many genes that are now useless? Actually, worse than useless, given the high rate of replication in the body, they're actually a liability. You may answer, "Because God did it," which is fine, but others have proposed this idea: that the genes were inherited from long ago, when this creature's life was fundamentally different and it did have a need for this protein, and, over time, a beneficial mutation rendered the prior one obsolete, something which can be observed, once again, in those bacterial experiments I just mentioned. Only this time, on a larger scale.

To me, this suggestion makes a lot of sense. It explains the results I'm finding. And I'm finding nothing but new results which are ones I would expect should this theory be accurate. If you wish to replace this theory for me, I'm all for it, but it necessarily must address why I am getting these false-positives for evolution and also explain in a far more convincing way the findings I've obtained. I can have you saying “Allah did it,” and my mother saying, “God did it,” and my cousin asking me if I've considered whether The Great Pumpkin might have had a hand in it over my shoulder all day, but I have to give them equal weight because I can't make predictions using those models, nor can I design experiments using those models.

Sometimes, I have the opposite problem of the one I just described. I'll look at some rare, insanely rare mutation, or something like a viral injection which most of the creatures on Earth won't have, but at a certain point, the organism we expected of being a common ancestor for, for example, humans, had this segment, and then miraculously all of the creatures we suspect were descendants, including the humans, has this strange segment.

To me, it loops back around again to the bacteria, and to me this really is the best use of Occam's Razor: I see this phenomenon in microbiology all the time, and I know what's happening, and I know it's just mutations and ancestry, and I can view it any given day while I drink an overpriced coffee and browse on the internet. Same phenomenon, simple explanation. So when I see this phenomenon in these larger organisms, in humans, there is no reason in my mind why I shouldn't accept that the answer is precisely the same as it was for the bacteria.

To suggest that, for some reason, this couldn't have happened and that humans are exempt, makes things infinitely more complicated. You might swoop in and say that God just put those segments there as a bookkeeping strategy, you know, give all the primates this segment just to keep things orderly or whatever His whim was at the time, but even though that takes less time to explain, it still floods me with unresolved questions, and again, I cannot make hypotheses with this, I cannot do tests, it's no longer science, it's the supernatural. It can't mix.

You complain that we've never observed speciation, and, to be honest, this is a puzzling complaint and I don't quite understand such an objection. I can pretty much play God with bacteria in a lab and no one much cares about those creepy crawlies, I get it, but the reason why this is so easy is because of how quickly they reproduce. And it's a steep growth, which allows for a lot of random mutations. And it's easy to stress those little guys out and create environmental pressures. All the perfect things you'd need to observe evolution (or, for the sake of our conversation, I'll keep calling it microevolution) in action. With animals, it's often wildly different.

The proposed model for all of these different species coming from a common ancestor is designed to stretch out over a mind-boggling amount of time. Never mind that most of our understanding of genetics and biology came within the last 50 or so years, but human observation of these changes, even if there was a consistent and rigorous, ongoing effort for the whole of humanity to observe and document all of plant and animal life and changes going back from the earliest whispers of human history, it wouldn't have been even near long enough to observe the dramatic indicators of these changes according to the timeline the theory of evolution puts forward.

Also, did you know that we're still finding new animals even today? Also, have you seen those deep-sea fish they're researching now? If there is a God, one of my favorite decisions he's ever made was to stuff those horrific creatures down into the depths of the ocean where they will never see the light of day. Our window—humanity's window—has been so small, so narrow, and the window for detailed and documented observation of biology has been even smaller, that this objection about not witnessing a dog turning into a new species is not only a strange one to request, but highly irrelevant to the argument of whether or not evolution is true. It's as though I told you that I know how to build a boat, and it will take me one month, and you claim that I cannot make a boat, and the evidence is that it's been a whole minute since I uttered those words and I have not produced a boat yet. It doesn't follow.

I think that first, an actual effort to actively search for a new origin of species model would help, preferably one that had the full backing and support of a mainstream scientistic community that currently pretends to have a monopoly on thought itself

I wouldn't mind this at all. In fact, monetary awards, fame, careers, Nobel prizes and whatnot are generally the carrot in front of a researcher's face to prompt them to check for holes in any scientific theory, anyway. I know for myself and for any scientist I've ever discussed this with, we'd be all for making a new theory if we could possibly think of one better, or if we ever made some discovery that showed evolution to be impossible.

There are, you can rest assured, a lot of theist scientists who are trying their best to think of a better model. But nothing has come out of it yet, and I must disagree that outlawing evolution and pushing the whole scientific community to think of some other idea will produce anything more satisfying. If it's to occur, it'll happen. That's science.

Second, attempt to run this new model pass the gatekeepers without getting your career destroyed, and you chased out of town with evolutionary theory’s version of “anti-semite” branded into your forehead.

I'm not sure if I asked for examples of this already, but I thought I did. Do you have any?

As for your objections to Christianity, I agree, Christianity makes no sense to me either and you're not going to get any argument from me there. I still don't quite agree with Islam, but rest assured that I don't agree with Christianity.

1.) Speciation proceeds in both the presence and absence of geographic barriers, while evolutionary theory says that just such barriers are needed for it to function.

I'm afraid that I'm not so sure what you're saying here. Or, more accurately, I think you may be mistaken or your sources were a bit confused. Can you show me where you got the idea that speciation can only occur with geographic barriers? Atmospheric conditions, mutations and good old-fashioned sex should work just the same.

2.) The concept that species slowly evolve into different species, leaving behind a fossil record of numerous, partially transformed species growing more and more complex or specialized, is a fiction promoted as a blind faith doctrine unsupported by any facts. Experimentations on millions of fruit flies, as well as over 6,000 years of barnyard artificial selections have never left any trace of any of these organisms ever transforming into a new species. Ever.

I still have the same objections to this as I listed above.

On a side note, I was in charge of keeping this lovely mutated fruit fly population for some undergraduate lab experiments once upon a time. They had these odd eyes that were cream white and their bodies were this strange light shade. There's a nice genetics legend behind it that involved a woman crawling out of a window to recapture a single mutant, but I'll spare you. Anyway, a few times I was too clumsy when transferring them from tube to tube, and a few would escape here and there, no big deal. But I started seeing the occasional white-eyed fly hanging around on that floor. I'm a little bit disappointed they didn't go forth and prosper. They're somehow less disgusting than the wild-types. Or do I only think that because they were mine?

3.) The molecular level mutations that appear in biological organisms do so as a matter of 100% pure chance, and do not happen automatically as a kind of ‘speciation factory’ requiring the concept of natural selection to guide the process along.

So after another 100,000,000,000 experiments with fruit flies, in which it is revealed they are still quite fruit flies and nothing more nor less, will it then be time to throw the evolutionary model away finally and stop wasting resources on fake science? Or will it have to be 200,000,000,000?

Again, same complaints as before, although I do want to add that, for most fruit fly experiments, we're using this wt Drosophila that, despite being called a wild-type, are not actually the same ones you'll find in your home, and are regulated lab strains. Most fruit fly experiments are genetic experiments (some medical), and we choose fruit flies because they are very genetically stable, and there's no meiotic recombination in males. This is a very rare quality that allows for comparatively lower mutations and recombination rates. Also, I've never heard of a lab keeping mixed flies together or even keeping their descendants over large spans of time. Usually, we anesthetize them to examine them phenotypically and genetically, and they tend not to survive that. If they do, they tend not to be very fertile afterward.

Regardless, if we were keeping a fruit fly population in all these various conditions instead of in isolation, closely regulated, in pure strains delivered by lab companies, and we did this over millions of years, you'd have yourself a very interesting experiment and I would love to see the results. Someone should start this project, actually, and some lucky jerk a million years from now might get to see our hard-earned results.

The difference here is that the mathematics and telescope observations supported the facts of the heliocentrism model, while nothing is supporting evolutionary theory except double talk and cheating. The pro-heliocentrists actually had a leg to stand on and weren’t pretending a pagan religion was science.

I don't see the double-talk and cheating, and I have seen a lot of new technology verifying our suspicions and allowing us to look deeper and deeper into molecular biology. So, I guess, unless you have something to show me, we can agree to disagree on this point.

1.) Speciation proceeds in both the presence and absence of geographic barriers, while evolutionary theory says that just such barriers are needed for it to function.i) SME: “While that model fits for many parts of the natural world, it doesn’t explain why some species appear to have evolved separately, within the same location, where there are no geographic barriers to gene flow.” ~Vicki Friesen, professor of biology (Science daily article, 20 Nov 2007) Doctor Friesen’s own research indicated that the band-rumped storm petrel shares its nesting sites in sequence with other petrels, with this conflicting with the standard view of evolutionary theory.

Is this your source for the idea that evolution requires a geographic boundary? Also, besides just saying “Science daily article” and the date, there should be a title so one could look it up and read it. Have you read this article? Can you tell me the title so I can read it, as well?

i) SME: "In sample sizes of more than one thousand individuals, there was no correlation between specific biological traits and either reproductive success or survival. “Important issues about selection remain unresolved.” ~Joel Kingsolver, The Strength of Phenotypic Selection in Natural Populations (2001)

Which specific biological traits is he speaking of? Is he talking about human individuals? I almost don't know where to begin on this one, as, if this quote is suggesting what I think it suggests, there are too many examples in the world to describe how organisms (yes, even humans) can be at a genetic disadvantage when reproducing, particularly in populations where some strange allele is common, or where survival is more likely for a human due to a certain allele, a great and classic example of which is the high rates of sickle-cell anemia in malaria-stricken locations and, of course, low populations of those same carriers in higher altitudes. Is this really what he's claiming has never been observed? I'd need to know more details about his claims. His methodologies? Anything? You read this book that they referenced, correct? Tell me all that you can.

ii) SME: “Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity. The relationships between major groups within an emergent new class of biological entities are hard to decipher and do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin’s original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution. The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds’ major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla. In each of these pivotal nexuses in life’s history, the principal ‘types’ seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate ‘grades’ or intermediate forms between different types are detectable.” ~Eugene Koonin, The Biological Big Bang Model for the Major Transitions in Evolution (2007)

“The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds’ major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla.”

I haven't the faintest idea what he thinks this sentence means, to be honest. Perhaps it was just transcribed lazily, or he had a poor editor. Again, I need more information than just this extraordinarily vague quote to have anything at all demonstrated to me, especially as, taken in isolation, at least, I could not disagree more with this paragraph. Context, please? Experimental findings? Something?

iii) SME: “The general foundations for the evolution of ‘higher’ from ‘lower’ organisms seems so far to have largely eluded analysis.” Emile Zuckerkandl, Neutral and nonneutral mutations: the creative mix--evolution of complexity in gene interaction systems (1997)

Oh man, you're killing me with these vague statements. I appreciate Emile's opinion, I guess, but I need to know more. I need to know how she formed it. I need to see some evidence. I need her to explain what precisely is eluding her.

3.) The molecular level mutations that appear in biological organisms do so as a matter of 100% pure chance, and do not happen automatically as a kind of ‘speciation factory’ requiring the concept of natural selection to guide the process along. i) SME: “The great majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level, as revealed by comparative studies of protein and DNA sequences, are caused not by Darwinian selection but by random drift of selectively neutral or nearly neutral mutations.” ~Motoo Kimura, The Neutral Theory of Molecular Biology (1983)

We actually had a nice discussion about that on here, somewhere. There's a lot of discussion about whether or not dramatic evolution will happen now that we've plateaued in comfort and security. Besides which, many people with alleles which, once upon a time, would have caused them to die young, are now being given the chance to reproduce and send that destructive allele sailing off into the future. So this quotation is actually faintly touching on another, thoroughly fascinating subject, although, regretfully, it does not disprove evolution.

The kind of extreme events/survival across great spans of time I believe are being referenced when the author says “Darwinian selection” are, yes, a lot more rare than your average mutation or recombination across generations. Of course it is. But the rarer ones are meant to explain the diversity from a common origin, and “Darwinian selection” is just one part of a large picture which is evolution.

They are, and again the difference between them and evolutionary theory is that they actually had facts/data/truths to work with that actually supported them, so that if the researchers veered off in the wrong direction based on wrong assumptions (“The universe didn’t have a beginning; the theists are stupid”), they could always go back to the facts that they did have and rebuild from that point up. Evolution, by contrast, is a house of cards, with all of the main points needed to prove it true lacking any kind of factual support. All efforts of the pro-evolutionists to prove otherwise – like TheRationalizer’s first major post in this thread – are a big mess of babbling, over-wordy misdirection designed to make you regret even inquiring into the topic in the first place by virtue of purest tedium.

Another instance where we'll simply have to agree to disagree, unless you can give me real examples. I do want to add that I don't find these arguments to be overly wordy or otherwise confusing or tedious. Especially right after reading original research articles in molecular biology, these posts are cake walks. But I think that highlights some of the issue that causes people who have been educated in biology and who are in the field to be less than receptive to debating with people who do selective, informal research and who carry many misconceptions to the table when they want to speak to us. Honestly, Mrasheed, this field is fucking mind-boggling. It is hard, it is intricate, it's amazing, and we have barely even scratched the surface. If you are truly interested in biology, take some courses. Particularly specialized ones. A college-level genetics course might be of particular interest to you.

While I do believe science should be accessible, I'm afraid it's a rare day where I can sit down and have an engaging conversation about my field with someone who performs their selective research on google or creationist sites. It requires a lot of shallow talk and a lot of explaining of basic concepts, as you saw, and we get thrust into this weird position where we kind of have to teach the person who is arguing with us about the basics of our field and then walk them through the steps of our argument, and a lot of people get lost on the way, because it's a hard enough subject as it is without trying to piece together everything on the fly during an emotional discussion. I can understand why some scientists just refuse to play this game or are impatient or, perhaps, condescending.

But let the record show that if definitive evidence for the emergence of a brand new species was indeed discovered within all of these experiments (as opposed to merely a blind faith optimism that the small scale changes within species is actually evolution in action that will eventually lead to the development of a whole new species)

The record doesn't show that, I'm afraid, but I've probably said enough about that for a start, for now.

Obviously you’re trying to get me lynched. They’ve destroyed the careers of actual scientists for daring to challenge their thought monopolies, so what chance would a Black American cartoonist have in coming out any better? I’m content in satisfying my own thirst for knowledge with self-study, and testing my theories against knuckleheads like you lot in spirited debate. I have little interest in getting my forehead branded.

American, huh? Greetings from New England. If you're in a warmer state, don't tell me about it. I can tolerate whatever you throw at me besides you taunting me with your homeostasis.

Luckily, we don't expect much from laymen. I might be a little wary of a molecular biologist who could look at me with a straight face and say he's never found any evidence for evolution, but for people with no higher education or experience in it, we don't ask much. Or we shouldn't ask much, at least. You're a cartoonist. That's your deal. That's an impressive deal, I can't draw to save my life, but I don't expect you to understand science. Our bar is set very low for you as far as your scientific literacy goes. But you do have to try a bit harder than submitting the shahadah. We can't do anything with that.

If you will notice the meticulous, highly-professional nature of the testing, which actually involved several different testing methods to ensure the thoroughness needed in actual science, compared to the patently false claims that they performed less than such meticulous professionalism the field demands by your CEMB colleagues who’ve been quoting the mainstream critics all the way to the end of this thread, you’ll see the conspiracy, cheating and lies manifested.

That is a very interesting article. But I must have missed your point. I haven't read or watched what they posted yet, so give me a rundown if the answer was to be found in their posts and not yours. I understand the testing they did on this specimen and the conclusions of the article. What are you trying to demonstrate, precisely, by the results of these studies?

Again serpentofeden’s attitude and vitriol is actually perfectly representative of supposed scientists towards the work of other scientists, which to me, further demonstrates how evolutionary theory is not a science at all, but a pagan religion with savage radicals whose enthusiasm for killing careers of rivals is almost as abominable as the terrorists’ violent attacks on innocent people.

I actually don't see much of this attitude or vitriol in the scientific community. I guess I have to await those examples I asked you for. Also, I'm not sure I'd be talking about attitude or vitriol if I were you. Especially your remarks to Cornflower were completely uncalled for.

Whew! That took forever. Is that a good start, Mrasheed? My apologies to everyone who had to even scroll by this gigantic post. I even extend my apologies to you, Mrasheed. It's full of questions that I wouldn't want to have to answer, myself, so I know already that it's unfair to ask a working answer out of you. But whatever, all in good fun, right?

lua, without a demonstration that a brand new species was produced from these tests and experiments, you still lack any kind of proof of the primary claims of evolutionary theory. ...........

You are the goddess of Patience lua ., For that I would have simply said this

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without a demonstration that a brand new species unseen Allah from these Islamic tests and test tube experiments, you still lack any kind of proof of the primary claims allah as a potentiometric omnipotent OR MINI POTATO THAT CONTROLS EVERYTHING ANYTHING IN THIS VAST UNIVERSE .

Hence this god or the omnipotent OR MINI POTATO Allah is nothing but flimsy imagination of brain washed Muslim minds

to that cartoon character., anyways, My hats off to you lua., and now in need to read and digest your post

Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything

I renounced my faith to become a kafir, the beloved betrayed me and turned in to a Muslim

bogart

Darwin established that geographical boundaries were needed for speciation varieties to develop, and then he promptly used the double talk that is the hallmark of his new religion to say that he wouldn't be surprised if the lack of geographic boundaries would also cause speciation varieties to develop. lol That's why this true believer scientist got so excited to 'confirm his finding." hahaha It's impossible for me to take this evolution foolishness seriously. They're not even trying.

So what? You are arguing against a model from Darwin while modern evolution accounts for this view but also allopatric, heteropatric, peripatric, parapatric, ,etc. You keep arguing against t a strawman you have created in your mind not what evolution as it is taught.

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The relevant page was right there in the preview, you nit. Click it.

It is an abstract not the study. Do you know the difference? I want to read the study. Do you know what a study is?

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I know, you read it, but you only see the parts that reinforce your indoctrination. I know. Even though he said that their understanding of selection has dramatically increased over the last 20 years, "important issues remain unresolved." That means: "Double-talk, double-talk, double-talk EVERYTHING remains unresolved as we have no facts to support our claim AT ALL."

So what? It seems like you are the only one under the impression that evolution must be a complete 100% certainty for it to be a theory. That is not how scientific theories work. You argument has no point other to illustrate you own misunderstanding of science. Physics still needs works. Quantum mechanics still needs work. Yet people still use all 3 since the theories do work in practice.

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Should I? I apologize for somehow giving the impression of respecting your feeble intellect. let me now assure you that I do not. I KNOW there isn't a single fact in existence that supports evolutionary theory, and at no point have you even come close to presenting one. Your nonsense links that will lead only to more nonsense double talk are a joke.

This has nothing to do with what I said. Ad hominem. My links are the studies and two which you reproduced. Go claim your nobel prize then.

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*sighhh* The fact that I have to take you by the hand and walk you towards the problem in your own nonsense is only evidence of the seriousness of your indoctrination. Here is a scientist admitting that there is NOTHING in the fossil record that supports the gradualistic development of speciation, yet this little bachelor degree kid declares otherwise while tossing latin terms at me that describe trays of old bones that literally mean nothing at all. Other than a reflection of his belief system.

Nope it is an alternative of Darwin;s origin idea not modern ideas which still acts the other mechanics, just not this certain one. It is still part of the evolutionary theory, just an alternative mechanic. This I have no issues with since I am not under the false impression that science is about 100% certainty.

"Here I do not really understand the concern. I changed "ready-made" to "abruptly", to avoid any ID allusions and added clarifications but, beyond that, there is little I can do because this is an important sentence that accurately and clearly portrays a crucial and, to the very best of my understanding, real feature of evolutionary transitions. Will this be used by the ID camp? Perhaps – if they read that far into the paper. However, I am afraid that, if our goal as evolutionary biologists is to avoid providing any grist for the ID mill, we should simply claim that Darwin, "in principle", solved all the problems of the origin of biological complexity in his eye story, and only minor details remain to be filled in. Actually, I think the position of some ultra-darwinists is pretty close to that. However, I believe that this is totally counter-productive and such a notion is outright false. And, the ID folks are clever in their own perverse way, they see through such false simplicity and seize on it. I think we (students of evolution) should openly admit that emergence of new levels of complexity is a complex problem and should try to work out solutions some of which could be distinctly non-orthodox; ID, however, does not happen to be a viable solution to any problem. I think this is my approach here and elsewhere."

He is talking about people like you. Hilarious the author of your own citation has words for your views.

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More testing is required in order to find what is needed to support what the theory claims, bogie. jesus...!

Inferences of ideas is valid until new data is produced to change such views. It is part of deductive, inductive and aductive logic in sciences. Again demonstrating you do not understand what you are talking about.

[/quote]He doesn't want to get ostracized from the scientific community either. lol [/quote]

You are a mind reader now? find me a source from the author stating this. Otherwise your point is moot.

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The theory of evolution is exactly the same, but with a force field of double talking nonsense surrounding it.

Nope. Geology, genetics and paleoanthropology were outside of Dawrins expertise. These concepts provide mechanics and observation which Darwin did not make but other did after he published his work and passed on.

toor

Well, apart from the insults, the gloating, the taunting, and the certainty that you had the only answer. We've seen blowhards before, so you weren't anything special. Take comfort in that, if you will.

The attempt to shame people with mental health issues was the last straw. If that's the sort of man you are, then you're not welcome here.

lua

Oh my goodness gracious lua you loaded the post with everything at your hand and you did that for this rubbish? You are the goddess of Patience lua ., For that I would have simply said.,

without a demonstration that a brand new species unseen Allah from these Islamic tests and test tube experiments, you still lack any kind of proof of the primary claims allah as a potentiometric omnipotent OR MINI POTATO THAT CONTROLS EVERYTHING ANYTHING IN THIS VAST UNIVERSE .

Hence this god or the omnipotent OR MINI POTATO Allah is nothing but flimsy imagination of brain washed Muslim minds

anyways, My hats off to you lua., and now in need to read and digest your post

Oh, Yeezevee, you are too funny, and I've had way too much time on my hands lately. But actually, no, that wasn't everything that came to mind, but I made myself stop writing at a certain point because I was getting overeager and ridiculous.

I wouldn't recommend trying to read that post, I tried proof-reading it and gave up.

justperusing

"O atheist!! Do not presume to preach to me my religion!! I will NOT follow you to hell! What I told Ali above is exactly what is true. There is NOTHING that can come from your disbelieving face that will hold any worth.

Shut. Up.

The ONLY thing you can do is to bow down to your Guardian Lord who made you, and repent of your filth. That's it! Do not dare talk to me of scripture and hadith when your own piss poor understanding has you on the path towards the Pit!"

Isn't this the speech Loki made in the avengers? Sounds very similar...

"I moreover believe that any religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system."-Thomas Paine

purelyatheist

lol hats of to you Lua for that post, always so much i want to say to guys like this but i dont get the point as they are stuck on their 'truth' which makes them arrogant and ignorant as someone mentioned before.

"I Knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then." Alice in wonderland

"This is the only heaven we have how dare you make it a hell" Dr Marlene Winell

Well, apart from the insults, the gloating, the taunting, and the certainty that you had the only answer. We've seen blowhards before, so you weren't anything special. Take comfort in that, if you will.

The attempt to shame people with mental health issues was the last straw. If that's the sort of man you are, then you're not welcome here.

Also...he lacked Hayya.

No free mixing of the sexes is permitted on these forums or via PM or the various chat groups that are operating.

three

But Christianity... at its core... did come from Allah. Accepting that the messenger was who he claimed to be, an anointed representative of the One God, here to instruct the people in scripture and wisdom is a matter of faith needed for all the messengers: Belief in the Prophets.

First you believe, then you act. Faith is the activating principle; your actions the proof of that faith. That's why if you simply surrender and do as He commands, you'll win through to paradise based on the record of your deeds alone even if you didn't have that faith in your heart truly. God's mercy will be on you because you ACTED like you believed and trusted Him. Of course your mansion won't be next to the Throne, but you'll still get in. The lowest level of heaven is better than the coolest level of the realm of torment.

I think it is sort of a play on Zoroastrianism and Greek mythology (thanks to the 13th disciple).

I think going through life pretending something is a pretty silly way to live. That's not how I am raising children to be authentic, for sure. I am not really interested in the eternal life promises and threats. I never needed wealth and mansions and etc in this life, so it's not much of a carrot for me.

Also I cannot just PRESTO! Believe! Unless I am hearing voices. And we all know how that ended. If this seems implausible, just PRESTO! Believe! That I invented bread. See, can't do it, can you? And yet I made a loaf this morning. Which ought to count as proof for my claim.

bogart

So you’re trying to say that the buildup of microevolutionary changes that are supposed to lead to speciation doesn’t take a long time?

Microevolution and Macro are the same thing just based on time. You asked for examples I have provided. Only your misconception of the concepts is causing issues. Dinosaurs to birds is an example of macro since it covers more than one species. Mico leads to speciation

So any day now those artificial selection fruit fly experiments should kick in and produce Super Fruit Fly 2.0, and it really ISN’T taking a really, really long time to finally (FINALLY!) get there. It’s just an illusion, am I right?

Artificial selection is evidence of evolution since it works. If evolution was false the experiments would not work. Also look at the named planet which had no artificat experiment but occurred in nature.

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Peer reviews are also often anonymous, so I don’t think you would know whether it was actually peer reviewed or not. I smell a bluff.

No it isn't. Journals always state who does reviews and their qualification. This is why journals are reliable vs journals which anonymous reviews or done by non-experts. Argument from incredulity

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Peer reviews are also often biased and inaccurate and very non-thorough. Speaking of which, there must be at least a thousand or so items listed in that book. You’d better hurry up and check out the rest of them. There’s a lad. I’m sure all of them aren’t from the 1820s. So Boston University and Harvard Medical School are considered fringe workers now, hm?

It is your sources not mine. I just gave examples of how poor the research the authors have done. Most sources are from the 19th and early 20th century which I told you was during a time when archaeology and peer-review were not developed to the modern standard today. The authors avoid modern research since it has refuted many of their sources. More so modern sources are made by experts in this field where as over a century ago anyone could call themselves an archaeologist.

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That would be a ‘vision’ just like I said.

Yet in his biography he didn't take LDS until after the theory was developed. So a back to the future vision huh?

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lol That was clearly a vision.

See above

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Meanwhile he’d been using LSD the whole time as a “thinking tool.” Nice try.

Read his biography.

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That precisely describes your own position on evolution except for the fact that your mind is snapped shut like a steel trap.Please stop pretending an atheist has any kind of insight into sacred scripture. You forfeited that right and now have a closed heart & mind, remember? That’s why you sound the way you do.

Stop pretending sacred scripture has an insight into science when it merely repeated popular lore during it's time. It is called wishful thinking and confirmation bias.

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Is THAT why you act like that? Fascinating. Brave of you to come out of the closet (so to speak).

Nope I have contempt for people talking about a subject which they have no formal education in. My contempt is based on your use of fallacious reasoning and the amount of ignorance you display in the dialogue.

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lol The book is only a compilation of numerous anomalies and nothing more, used as a reference to counter a point claiming that there were no such unknowns. Why you perversely decided to gleefully attack the book as if it had any kind of actual relevance to the greater argument is beyond me.

Sources from non-experts, sources from almost two centuries ago. Sources which have been refuted for decades. Source which are ignorant of current methodology. The author does not even understand basic site contamination yet spins this ignorance into points for an audience as equally ignorant

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You in turn aren’t any kind of intellectual and you lack integrity. Doesn’t stop you from ad nauseam sharing your thoughts with the uninterested.

Pot meet kettle. Yet I am not with the one that believes in moral and moral obligations of a God. So I am beholden to no one while you are. My thought so far have shown you do not know what you are talking about, do not read your own sources and your argument is a strawman based on a lack of education.

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I don’t take offense that you prefer the stance of my ideological enemies over the position of truth. In fact, I show up on these message board precisely looking for those who uphold just such a stance. Let the record show that for all the thousands of words you have yet typed, not once do you have a single fact to support evolutionary theory’s claims.

I have linked a number of facts while your facts are based on ignorance, a strawman and many arguments from incredulity.

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You’ll win if you manage to provide proof of evolutionary theory’s 3 faith-based tenants. Shy of that, bogie, you are simply babbling and wasting keyboard energy.

It is clear that you would never accept any evidence. Your religious ideology is tied up with your self-identity. Take a few classes in biology, all the evidence you need will be taught to you in a class.

bogart

Occam's razor is about two competing hypothesis which are equal. Creationism, god did it, is not a hypothesis as it has no predictive power. More so since God is capable of changing or halting natural laws with miracles it throws the whole system into chaos thus can not fit Occam's razor. So in two way Gods does not fit the razor. The attributes given to God are also assertions not observations so this is a 3rd way which it fails the razor. Unknown mechanics in God, such as how did God create, in what way, how long did it take, etc. also cause it to fail to meet the razor.

Well, apart from the insults, the gloating, the taunting, and the certainty that you had the only answer. We've seen blowhards before, so you weren't anything special. Take comfort in that, if you will.

The attempt to shame people with mental health issues was the last straw. If that's the sort of man you are, then you're not welcome here.

lua

Occam's razor is about two competing hypothesis which are equal. Creationism, god did it, is not a hypothesis as it has no predictive power. More so since God is capable of changing or halting natural laws with miracles it throws the whole system into chaos thus can not fit Occam's razor. So in two way Gods does not fit the razor. The attributes given to God are also assertions not observations so this is a 3rd way which it fails the razor. Unknown mechanics in God, such as how did God create, in what way, how long did it take, etc. also cause it to fail to meet the razor.

lua

I haven't finished reading them yet, but I couldn't help but put up this brilliant comment made to the author and the author's response in "The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution" article:

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Abstract: "In each major class of biological objects, the principal types emerge "ready-made", and intermediate grades cannot be identified." Ouch, that will be up on ID websites faster than one can bat an eye.

Author's response: Here I do not really understand the concern. I changed "ready-made" to "abruptly", to avoid any ID allusions and added clarifications but, beyond that, there is little I can do because this is an important sentence that accurately and clearly portrays a crucial and, to the very best of my understanding, real feature of evolutionary transitions. Will this be used by the ID camp? Perhaps – if they read that far into the paper. However, I am afraid that, if our goal as evolutionary biologists is to avoid providing any grist for the ID mill, we should simply claim that Darwin, "in principle", solved all the problems of the origin of biological complexity in his eye story, and only minor details remain to be filled in. Actually, I think the position of some ultra-darwinists is pretty close to that. However, I believe that this is totally counter-productive and such a notion is outright false. And, the ID folks are clever in their own perverse way, they see through such false simplicity and seize on it. I think we (students of evolution) should openly admit that emergence of new levels of complexity is a complex problem and should try to work out solutions some of which could be distinctly non-orthodox; ID, however, does not happen to be a viable solution to any problem. I think this is my approach here and elsewhere.

Mrasheed, if you're still reading this, and I'm sure that you are, you really should reconsider using articles as evidence for intelligent design where the scientist who authored it bashes intelligent design and creationist thinking within the publication and makes it clear that his position in no way could be reasonably interpreted to support your claims.

bogart

Oh, these are his articles? Thanks, bogart. I'll have to give these a good read later, I'm sure they'll clear everything up.

And I wish I could say I'd remember this time, but my apologies in advance if this isn't the last time you have to get on me for that.

Actually most of those are my sources. He linked abstracts and newspapers. I had to find the actual studies which I posted a few pages ago. He re-posted my sources as his own when I asked for his sources. In fact he had no source studies. He was quote-mining a summaries which I called him on.

bogart

I haven't finished reading them yet, but I couldn't help but put up this brilliant comment made to the author and the author's response in "The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution" article:

Mrasheed, if you're still reading this, and I'm sure that you are, you really should reconsider using articles as evidence for intelligent design where the scientist who authored it bashes intelligent design and creationist thinking within the publication and makes it clear that his position in no way could be reasonably interpreted to support your claims.

I quoted that to him already. He didn't actually read anything he linked. Heck he linked a sciencedaily site which the author said the study confirmed Darwin twice. So he linked a source saying "look evolution is verified". Heck the first line says the study confirms Darwin's work. Linking a source which refutes your view is just mind boggling stupid. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071113160351.htm

Anyway, Mrasheed, I probably could have been less of a dick about that. I just got carried away by how funny it was to me. My apologies. For real. In all seriousness, Mrasheed, this should be a lesson in two things:

Firstly, make sure you read everything thoroughly.

Secondly, make sure you understand what you're reading if you want to properly analyze it and draw conclusions from it. I get that you may not completely understand everything in all of these articles sometimes. To be honest, for some more complicated articles for specialties I rarely deal with, I have to look a few things up, myself.

Like I said, I do think science should be accessible and it shouldn't be this top secret code that only other scientists know how to interpret. But the fact of the matter is that this stuff is hard. You can't just jump into it and expect to know what you're doing. And you can't look at it through a warped lens, which is the only sort you'll get from creationist websites.

If you find an article like this in the future and you do not know how to interpret it, as you didn't know how to interpret these, see if there's someone you can ask. Someone you can trust to be objective about it, and who has a background in biology. Or, better yet, do take those college courses. I know it's not cheap here, but even community college classes should help, and then you can ask your professors during office hours. Many will be willing to discuss an article with you and make sure you're interpreting it correctly.

It's not easy stuff, Mrasheed. It really isn't. And I approach the subject with humility and amazement even today. I hope you keep learning.

yeezevee

..............Mrasheed, if you're still reading this, and I'm sure that you are, you really should reconsider using articles as evidence for intelligent design where the scientist who authored it bashes intelligent design and creationist thinking within the publication and makes it clear that his position in no way could be reasonably interpreted to support your claims.

That is what surprised me lua., Look at his post and pdf files/ reference in support of questioning theory of biological evolution on this planet